


Untouchable

by withthebreezesblown



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Point of View, Character Study, F/M, Lyrium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 03:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6357445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthebreezesblown/pseuds/withthebreezesblown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He doesn’t tell her because </i>he is untouchable<i>, and he will not let even her touch him now.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Untouchable

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the same universe as [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4840649/chapters/11087651). A prequel of sorts, but some details may be a bit unclear without having read the first 12ish chapters of that...
> 
> I don't know that I've captured Cullen's voice very well, and that bothers me. Constructive criticism welcome.

The first time they give him lyrium, he just stands stock still, staring at the sky. It is summer blue, the brightest, most brilliant thing he’s ever seen. He’s transfixed by the soft swirl of white clouds undulating against it.

Even the scrape of metal on metal, louder than it should be, that tells him another knight is approaching cannot pull his gaze down until a hand descends gently to his shoulder. Once he manages to pull his eyes away, he feels a rush of embarrassment—what in the Maker’s name is wrong with him? Staring at the sky like a halfwit whilst there are things to be done. When his eyes lower to meet Ser Everard’s, an apology is already half formed on his lips, but the man is waving it off before he can get it out.

He is the oldest knight Cullen knows. If right now the sky is lyrium bright, then usually Ser Everard’s eyes are the opposite of this—lyrium dull, lyrium dimmed. Today—for the moment—they are clear enough as the man looks at him with a face full of emotion: pride, sympathy, envy. “It gets better. Well, maybe not better. It gets easier to ignore. In a few months, you’ll be able to walk right past all the bright colors without staring like a fool, even in the morning right after a philter.”

It isn’t just him, then. The embarrassment fades against the lyrium fueled sense of certainty, that all is as it should be. They might have mentioned it though, he thinks. He knew that lyrium sharpens the senses; every recruit knows that. But they might have warned him that it would feel like _this_. He hates feeling like a fool.

 

 

His first days at Kinloch Hold are full of the vibrating clash of certainty and uncertainty. When he knows what he is doing, Cullen Rutherford is an unstoppable force. It’s not arrogance; it’s something he’s proven again and again during his years of dedicated training. He’d been deemed ready to take his vows before recruits who’d been trained for knighthood from birth by the finest tutors. When he knows what he’s doing, he does it damn well.

But Maker, he hates not knowing what he’s doing. The literal circularity of the hold should make it impossible to be lost, but instead, nearly windowless, monotonous, it just confuses his orientation. He ends up taking the longest possible route to every destination. He wears his helmet, even though it is hot and sticky, the dampness of his breath condensing around him and suffocating him. He wears it even though it is not strictly required as part of his uniform. Most of the templars do, though he suspects his own reasons are a little different. He just doesn’t want to become known as the daft templar who always looks lost. If he can ever familiarize himself with this place, he’ll gladly leave it behind.

After a philter of lyrium, he’s assigned watch duty in the library. He wonders if this too is a test. To make him stand still for eight hours, jittery nearly to the point of agitation with lyrium. But he’s determined to prove why he alone of all the recruits he trained with was chosen for the Circle. He is perfectly still, even if behind his helmet, he cannot help staring all the brightly colored robes—apprentices blue as the lake near his home on a bright day, Harrowed mages yellow as sunshine—standing out vividly against the hundred shades of gray that make up everything around them. The library is quiet. Mostly. A girl laughs once, somewhere on the other side of the room out of sight, first clear and ringing, then muffled, then gone. It’s louder than Rosalie and sweeter than his mother. It’s a lovely sound, and he waits for it to come again. It doesn’t.

 

 

The worst moment, the one that makes him cringe and think, _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , comes during his first night shift. His job is to stand by the door to the female apprentice dormitory. He can’t see her for the curve in the wall from here, but he knows Annlise is at the other door. If there were more female templars, he’d be guarding the male dormitory, but there are only the two, and they take night work in shifts. So here he is, in the muted night glow of the magical lamps that shine brightly during daylight hours. Watching girls sleep.

He does not allow himself to shift uncomfortably, even though the thought makes him uncomfortable. He’s been told to stand here at attention, and so he will, flawlessly, silently, because it is his duty. Far be it for him to question. Even if eight hours standing here, watching girls sleep, does seem a bit pointless to him.

He discovers the point soon enough when a scream rends the silence.

There’s only an instant of shock before his training takes over. He knows how to deal with an abomination. He is prepared for this. He has his sword out, a Smite gathering, and he’s halfway across the room already when he feels something catch his arm, pulling him back. Annlise’s whispered voice is sharp in his ear. “ _Cullen_! For Maker’s sake, put your sword away and stand down!”

“But—“

“It was only a bad dream. The child is fine. This is a common occurrence, you’ll find soon enough. Abominations are, mercifully, _not_. When an abomination occurs, you _will know the difference_. Everyone in this room _will know the difference_. This is not it. For _this_ , we let the mages tend to their own. Get back to your post. You’re making things worse.”

That’s when he realizes that every apprentice in the room is awake, staring at the two of them, that even though she’s whispering, most have probably heard every word of Annlise’s reprimand. One of the older apprentices has made her way over to the bed of the child who cried out, sitting herself on the edge in a way he can’t help noticing places her between him and the terrified, sobbing little girl. Her body is turned toward the child, arms around her, but her head is craned towards him, staring in the sickly glow of the lamps.

That’s when the shame hits him. The poor little girl has just _survived_ an encounter with a demon. She has succeeded. She should be congratulated and comforted, not loomed over by a templar with his sword drawn. He sheathes it quickly. Maker, he feels a fool. He should get back to his post where he can quietly berate himself, but…

He isn’t ignorant. He knows how so many of the templars feel about mages. And he knows how he must look to all these girls. He remembers one of the only times he’d ever dared to disagree with one of the Knight Captains who had trained him. He doesn’t remember how the conversation started, but the Knight Captain had insisted that it was inappropriate and unbefitting of a templar’s station to apologize to a mage, even in circumstances in which the templar had been in the wrong. He hadn’t agreed with the man then. He finds now that he still does not agree.

When he takes a step forward and the child’s cries rise in pitch, he feels another rush of shame. He takes off the helmet that hides his face. “I’m sorry. I am… truly sorry.”

The child is still crying, face pressed against the girl holding her. The older apprentice says nothing, but he only realizes that she was actually glaring at him when her eyes loose their narrowness in a look of surprise.

 

 

The next day he leaves his helmet in his room. He debates it for a long moment. It is a lyrium day. Without his helmet to hide behind, he will have to make an effort not to stare like a witless fool. It won’t be so very hard, he tells himself. The only bright things in this place are the robes. It’s easy enough to ignore now so long as nothing catches him off guard.

He’s stationed in the library again, on the opposite end this time. He’s beginning to believe it _must_ be intentional, stuffing him in the quietest, most still place in the entire hold while the lyrium is thrumming through him so strong. There’s an elf sprawled on one of the couches who keeps talking too loudly, but the Senior Enchanter in the corner is content to let her get away with it, so he says nothing. His eyes are drifting idly along the spines of the books near enough to read when that laugh, the same one that caught his attention the last time he was here, sounds again, drawing his gaze to an apprentice just settling herself next to the girl on the couch.

It’s easy enough not to stare when he isn’t caught off guard.

He’s caught entirely off guard.

It’s her hair that gets him. Maybe on another day it would have just been red hair, but today, to his lyrium fierce vision, it is _red, so red_. Red as the sky at dawn before the kind of storm that would keep his father from his fields, pacing the house instead.

Later, he realizes it’s the same apprentice who put herself between him and the terrified child the night he made such a fool of himself. In the dim light, he hadn’t even been able to make out the color of her hair. Now, he sees nothing but _red_.

He should have worn his helmet.

 

 

It is his bad luck that _that girl_ has _that hair_. Anyone else with _that_ hair, he could have learned to ignore. But her, the girl with the courage to put herself between a templar and a child the templar thought had abominated… Any other hair on _that_ girl, and however much he came to admire her, he wouldn’t have stared. He isn’t sure if it’s that—the way he watches her— or if it’s the way he stumbles over his words every time he speaks to her, but within weeks the entire keep knows about his infatuation. 

He doesn’t even realize that they all know until the Revered Mother hands him a half ration of lyrium one morning. “Perhaps the full dose was a bit much for you… Too much is known to have a… negative affect on the attention span.”

Though he says nothing, he is, at first, outraged. There’s nothing wrong with his attention span. And then he understands. At least he thinks he understands. Her voice is so kindly, that the truth of it doesn’t occur to him. It’s years later, in Kirkwall, only after he finds the will to begin to question Meredith, that he finally sees it for what it was: a punishment.

 

 

Irving asks the templars not to tell her. Not to tell Solona that her best friend has been made Tranquil. The First Enchanter is doing his best to hold up under his own grief, but what’s done is done, and Cullen can see now that it’s the girl with hair like the morning in flames that troubles him most. “She will not forgive this. She will have no contentment here once she learns. Let her have another year of peace before she is weighed down with this.”

Cullen’s heart aches for the girl—for both of them really. They were inseparable. This keep is a lonely place. Being a templar has not made him oblivious to that. He doesn’t think either of them really knew how much so when they had each other. One of them still will not. And that, somehow, is even worse.

 

 

She’s crying when he finds her in the Chantry. The girl who laughs too loud and too often, crying. Even though he knows he should not, he takes off his metal gauntlets—unlike the helmet, these are _not_ optional when he is on duty. He does it anyway. He’s never actually touched her before. He isn’t sure if she will let him. If she knew the truth, he thinks she would not. But she doesn’t know, and she does let him. He holds his breath when his fingertips brush against her cheek, gently wiping away the tears. When her cheeks are dry, she exhales with a soft noise and turns from him to light a candle. And then she begins to sing the Chant. It’s from the Canticle of Apotheosis. He wonders if it’s sacrilege to sing about the death of Andraste herself when grieving for a loved one. Even if it is, he isn’t going to reprimand her for it. He sings with her. He doesn’t dare touch her again.

 

 

The next time he sees her, in an empty classroom that echoes with her voice, she’s singing again, but it isn’t from the Chant. The Chant, he thinks, was merely her doing her duty. _This_ is for Neria. It’s sad and beautiful, and he just stands there, listening. When she’s done, she looks at him, eyes dry, chin up, expression fierce.

“She sang that to me. On my first night here, when I thought I’d break into a thousand pieces and die of wanting my mother. Or that I would turn into an abomination at any moment. I knew exactly enough of mages to think that was what happened to us all. She sang that song and then she told me this:” She steps closer to him, places a hand over his heart, and he could swear he can feel it straight through the plate mail. “‘This is where you carry your mother’s love. This is where you carry courage when you don’t think you have any. This is where you are untouchable by any you don’t allow in. This is where you are indestructible. As long as you know that, no one can break you.’”

When she comes like Andraste to save him from a world broken all around him, he doesn’t tell her. He doesn’t tell her because _he is untouchable,_ and he will not let even her touch him now. Later, much later, he wishes he had told her; he thinks that she deserved better than the ungrateful words he gave her. She deserved to know that the words that saved her once, that she shared with him, they saved him too.  They were his litany, the days he spent in that cell, his own fist clenched over his heart. _This is where I am untouchable. This is where I am indestructible. You will not break me._


End file.
